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Tripura University was launched on 2 October 1987.[1][2] The state’s first institution of higher education, MBB College, had commenced functioning from 1947 with affiliation from Calcutta University but in the immediate aftermath of partition the population of the state registered a steep growth and so did the number of students aspiring for higher education.

The launching of the MBB College was soon followed by the setting up in 1950 of Ramkrishna Mahabhidyalay in Kailasahar, present headquarter of Unokoti Tripura district. In 1964 Belonia College was launched in South Tripura, followed within three years by the establishment of Ram Thakur College in 1967 at Agartala. The students of the state remained hamstrung by one crucial fact: all of the colleges had to secure affiliation with Calcutta University and no scope for university education existed within Tripura.

Since the late 1960s CE, student movements within Tripura consistently focused on the demand for expansion of opportunities for higher education and setting of Tripura’s own university. Responding to rising demands Calcutta University authority agreed to have post-graduate classes on history, mathematics, and economics held in MBB College and, in 1976, the University Grants Commission (UGC) recognized this as Calcutta University Post Graduate Centre (CUPGC). This only further intensified the state’s quest for higher education and demand for a separate university . It however took nine more years to initiate measures for setting up Tripura’s own university. It was on 18 May 1985 that the then education minister and tribal leader Dasharath Deb laid the foundation for Tripura University on the sprawling 75 acres (300,000 m2) of land, donated by the state government, at Suryamaninagar, ten kilometers south of Agartala. The work on construction progressed rapidly and the state assembly passed the Tripura University Act in 1987, extending legislative approval to the process of launching the University. It was on 2 October, the birth date of Mahatma Gandhi, that Tripura University formally came into being.

Tripura University provides post-graduate courses in sixteen subjects while the various Departments, Directorates and Centres within it provide 38 degree courses. All twenty four general and technical colleges, within the state, are affiliated with Tripura University.